Hi everyone. I'm a 74 year old woman. Earlier this month (January 2023) I had a very painful biopsy for a potential BCC in my eyebrow, which has turned out to be positive. The biopsy has already left a noticeable gap in my eyebrow. The apparently-harmless flat pink spot, almost invisible to the naked eye, had been there for years and years but I didn't think anything of it until last summer, when it started to itch and bleed.
I'm now down for pre-op assessment for Moh's on 10 February. I'm terrified of the surgery, not least because the biopsy hurt so much. I always have difficulty going numb with local anaesthetic, whether it is a medical or dental procedure (my last filling at the dentist required 11 injections). I'm already a very anxious person and recently came off long-term antidepressants because of unpleasant side effects (e.g. copious sweating - I had never realised this was caused by SSRIs, and now I have a widespread fungal infection on my abdomen which is proving intractable). So, no medication help and my anxiety is through the roof.
The two things I'm frightened of are a) the pain of Moh's, as local numbing just doesn't work for me, and b) the change to my appearance. I think I will probably lose my eyebrow. I've always taken pride in how I look. I do a lot of volunteering and community support. No-one told me that the biopsy would take such a chunk out of my eyebrow, and the Moh's will probably take away the rest. I will look odd! I know I can 'paint in' an eyebrow with makeup but I don't want to do that for the rest of my life. Nor do I want a tattoo.
Can anyone help me with the prospect of feeling every painful thing they will do to me during Moh's?
